Dear Readers: I’m on vacation — second and last week — and will be back with new columns next week. Please enjoy this selection of letters from three previously published columns in the meantime. — Dan
I was raised in a religious home and didn’t lose my virginity until the embarrassing age of 26. I was told by the church to save it for marriage and I was a virgin until met the woman who would become my wife at a party. I said to hell with it, we had a one-night stand, and we’ve been together now for eight years. I’m tall and slim and my wife is short and heavy. Like an idiot I believed it’s what’s on the inside that matters. My wife is the sweetest, most thoughtful person I’ve ever met, I love spending time with her, but I have absolutely no sexual attraction to her. As a result, I’ve all but stopped initiating sex and on the rare occasion when we do make love I make her come twice while I’m struggling just to get off.
I know it’s shallow and I know beauty is only skin deep but what am I supposed to do when seeing my wife naked sends me into an anxiety attack? When I’m helping out with laundry, I get bummed because there’s nothing in her wardrobe I find attractive on her. Even when I look at old pictures of us together I get extremely depressed because I know this is the best she’s ever going to look. It doesn’t help that she finds me handsome and regularly tells me so.
It’s gotten to the point where I find any woman who isn’t my wife desirable. (Including, but not limited to, her family and friends.) I should also mention that she has no interest in having an open relationship or threesome because she prefers having me “all to herself.” I don’t want to ask her to change because she’s perfectly happy with herself but I’m becoming increasingly resentful. What do I do? How do I tell her? And is there any way I can come out of this a good husband?
In The Shallows
I was so relieved to get all the way to end of your letter without learning you had kids. Because that means I can advise you — with a clear conscience — to file for divorce and move the fuck out just as soon as it’s possible to do so. Not for your own sake, ITS, but for your wife’s sake. She deserves better.
You say you’re growing increasingly resentful. I hope your resentment is directed at all of the people who victimized you. Your wife isn’t one of them. It’s your parents you should resent, ITS, as well as all the sex-phobic bullshit artists out there masquerading as “faith leaders.”
You should be angry with yourself. While I know from personal experience how a religious upbringing can put the zap on a kid’s head, you were a grown-ass man when you met your wife at that party. You couldn’t have slept with her that night — you couldn’t have lost your virginity in a one-night stand — if you hadn’t already rejected nearly everything you’d been taught about sex. And if you were capable of having premarital sex, ITS, you were capable of refraining from marrying the first person you slept with.
Your wife is gonna want to know why you’re leaving her — because of course she is — but you’re not going to tell her the real reason. You’re going to make something up. You want kids and she doesn’t (or vice-versa), you married too young (which is true), you have unresolved childhood issues (and don’t we all). While you won’t be able to spare your wife the pain of a breakup, ITS, you can spare her the pain of learning the person she’s been sleeping with for eight years is repulsed by her body. You can’t be a good husband to her, ITS, but you can be decent ex-husband. And to do that — to be her decent and loving and supportive ex — you can’t set her self-esteem on fire on your way out the door.
And your wife’s body isn’t repulsive. She’s not someone you’re attracted to, ITS, and you’re not obligated to find short and round women sexually appealing. But while “tall and slim” are more closely associated with conventional concepts of attractiveness, ITS, not everyone’s into tall and slim. There are people out there who are into short and round and people who who are attracted to all body types and people who are indifferent to bodies. Your wife deserves the chance to be with someone who’s sincerely attracted to her. Even being alone would be better than spending decades with someone who recoils from her touch.
And for the record: What’s on the inside does count. It matters. If you met a woman who was more conventionally attractive — if you were with someone who was your idea of hot — and over time she revealed herself to be an asshole (signs: rude to waiters, shitty about your friends, a Trump supporter, etc.), your attraction to her would wither away. What you want — the best you can hope for — is some combo of hot on the outside (subjective and personal) and good on the inside. And the longer you’re with someone, ITS, the more important that good on the inside shit becomes. Time is a meat grinder that makes hamburger us all. If you prioritize your idea of hot over all other qualities, you run the very real risk of spending decades with a person who has aged out of hot and was never nice.
Originally published April 21, 2020.
Married 40-year-old gay guy here. I hate beards—the look, the feel, the smell — and I miss the good old days when the only beards gay dudes had were metaphorical. When I got back from a long business trip, my hot, sexy, previously smooth husband of many years was sporting a beard. Unsurprisingly, I hate it and find it to be a complete turnoff. However, he says this is controlling behavior on my part, it’s his body and his choice, and he’s hurt that I’m rejecting him. He also says I’ll get used to it and he doesn’t plan to keep it forever. I agree that it’s his body and his choice, but I think he should still take me into consideration, and that it’s actually him who’s rejecting me, by choosing the beard over me. What’s your take?
Spouse’s Hairiness Averts Virile Erection
I’m on your side, SHAVE, but I’m also on his. It is his body, and growing a beard is something he can choose to do with the face section of his body. But that my body/my choice stuff cuts both ways: Your body is yours, and what you do with your body is your choice. And you can choose not to press your body against his — or press your face against his — while he’s got a beard. If long business trips are a regular part of your life, maybe he could grow his beard out in your absence and shave when you get home. (Full disclosure: I have a pronounced anti-beard bias, which means I’m not exactly impartial.)
Originally published February 26, 2020.
I have what most people would consider an amazing life. I have two healthy kids, financial security, a stable career, and a husband who is the exact partner I could ever want. I really couldn’t ask for more. I just have one issue: my husband wants to be intimate more often than I do. We are both nearing 40, and his libido has not slowed down. I, on the other hand, due to a combination of being busy with work and us both taking care of the kids (especially during the lockdown), find myself with a decreased sexual drive. Because of all my (and our) obligations, I find myself alternating between a state of tiredness, anxiousness or distraction, none of which get me “in the mood.” We’ve talked about the situation, and he is absolutely respectful when we do so, but he has made it clear he’s very frustrated. I think once a week is more than enough and he could go multiple times a day. It’s to the point where he feels he’s begging just to fit some “us” time into our lives, which he says makes him feel undesirable and humiliated. There isn’t anything wrong with him that leaves me not wanting to engage in physical intimacy, we just seem to have different physical intimacy schedules, and it’s putting a serious strain on our relationship. How can we work to find a comfortable middle ground, or at the absolute least, help me explain to him why I’m not as randy as he is?
Completely Lost In Tacoma
You don’t need to craft an elaborate explanation, CLIT, as what’s going on here is pretty simple: your husband has a high libido and you have a low one.
What you need is a reasonable accommodation. Opening up your marriage obviously isn’t an option right now, CLIT, and it might not be an option you would’ve considered even if it were possible for your husband to find an outlet (or inlet) elsewhere. But there is something you can do.
Your husband is doubtless jacking off a lot to relieve the pressure. If there’s something he enjoys that you don’t find physically taxing and if he promises not to pressure you to upgrade to intercourse in the moment, then you could enhance his masturbatory routine. Does he like it when you sit on his face? Then sit on his face — you can even keep your clothes on — while he rubs one out. Does he love your tits? Let him look at them while he beats off. Is he a little kinky? It doesn’t take that long to piss on someone in the tub and it wouldn’t mean adding something to your already packed schedule, CLIT, as you have to find time to piss anyway.
It would be unreasonable of your husband to expect sex three times a day — that would be an irrational expectation even if you were childless and wealthy — but your husband isn’t asking you to fuck him three times a day. He wants a little more sexual activity, some erotic affirmation, and more couple time. Giving him an assist while he masturbates could tick those boxes. That said, this will only work if your husband vows never to initiate intercourse during an assisted masturbation session. If you catch a groove and start feeling horny and wanna upgrade to intercourse, you should. But he needs to let you lead because if he starts pressuring you for sex when you’re just there to assist then you’re going to be reluctant to help him out.
If he can follow that one rule, CLIT, you’ll feel more connected and you’ll probably wind up having more PIV/PIB/PIM sex — maybe twice a week instead of once a week — but it will be sex you both want, and sex you initiated.
Originally published May 5, 2020.
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